The talk around the water cooler is that the proposed $70 million jail bond won’t pass. No how, no way.

Of course this is a whopper of a price tag, but ignore a problem for years, and as your mom would tell you - or at least, my mom would - that’s what you get.

As I write this, the Wichita County commissioners are at their second of three planned public information meetings on the proposed jail bond issue that would result in a brand spanking new jail and Law Enforcement Center. It would replace the current downtown jail and Sprague Annex with one facility on Sprague grounds.

What I’m hearing is that the commissioners started too late on this deal - that drumming up support for a bond this meaty really needed a bigger push much earlier.

But the jail predicament isn’t something new.

It’s been something volleyed back and forth more than the championship game at Wimbledon over the past six years - six years.

The commissioners don’t have to sell this jail thing to me - a botheration I've written about before.

Frankly, our jail facilities are deplorable. They’re a horrifying mess - and I’ve only been at the “welcoming” area at the facility downtown, which isn’t too welcoming, by the way. It is a cave of an echoey space where I actually saw trash on the ground that included a needle.

But I’ve heard the horror stories - the water leaks, the not-up-to-speed kitchen facility, inmates smashed in there as if they’re at a rave with not much to rave about.

Lana Sweeten-Shults is the entertainment editor for the Times Record News in Wichita Falls, Texas.

Lana Sweeten-Shults is the entertainment editor for the Times Record News in Wichita Falls, Texas.

Torin Halsey

I don’t want to hear about people who just don't give a hoot about prisoners or inmate conditions.

What I would say to them is that the county isn’t asking to build some kind of state-of-the-art, high-tech, sparkling facility.

We simply need a building that meets minimum state standards.

In case you didn’t know, our jails barely meet that minimum standard. What an embarrassment that is to our city.

Can you imagine trying to sell this town to potential businesses that may want to invest here or people who may want to move here?

Sure, we have great chicken-fried steak, but we don’t have the proper jail space to keep you and your children safe.

And to those who couldn’t give a hoot about inmates or the conditions in which they live, just mull over this: How much is it costing you NOT to build a new jail?

It has gotten so bad that the county is having to pay other counties to house our inmates because of our sad, sad (I’ll throw a third sad in there - super sad) jail facilities, and if those don’t-give-a-hoot-folks don’t realize it, that’s a big cost. That’s something like $50 a day, and when you consider renting space for some 500 inmates, that’s a big chunk of change.

That’s not to say anything about putting a Band-Aid over and over again on the roof leaks and other needs. Whatever the temporary solution may be, in the end, it's costing taxpayers a lot of money.

The Sprague Annex, by the way, was a temporary solution yeas ago that somehow has become an unintended permanent solution to our jail problem. Imagine that - now this temporary solution itself needs a solution.

My dad was always big on maintaining the stuff you’ve got. Do regular maintenance on your car, he said, and it’ will run longer.

But it seems Wichitans never have wanted to do either - maintain their jails or build a new one, so now we've come to this crisis point.

This whole conundrum isn’t just limited to the jails, by the way.

It’s as if some kind of do-as-little-as-possible syndrome has kept this community from moving forward much over the years.

Not only have we shunned jail upkeep, but upkeep on school buildings - Alamo was 106 years old (106 years old!) before it finally had to be closed - and then there are the wanting recreation facilities.

Having to travel to Burkburnett and Iowa Park - towns much smaller than Wichita Falls - to use their new water parks and pools (the Lucy Park pool just isn’t cutting it) because they're well, new, and cost visitors around $8 per person to use rather than the $20 at Castaway Cove, should be a concern for the city.

The message seems to be that we don’t want to spend any money at all, even though things are falling apart. We don’t want to invest in our community no matter what - just let the roofs fall as they may and be happy with a 106-year-old-school. Be happy with your chicken-fried steak and one Lucy Park pool and just ignore that inmates will have nowhere to go because we don't even have an adequate enough jail to send them to.